Joyfully Weary

Primary Literature Johnny Appleseed by Steven Kellogg. This biography briefly covers Johnny Chapman's life from his birth to his death. The prose appeals to young listeners and is easy for them to follow along. The whimsical and colorful illustrations are also captivating. Vocabulary words to review. tall tale -  an exaggeration of a story, has unbelievable elements tranquil - quiet and calm boisterous - noisy and rowdy cellar - a room below the ground orchard - land where fruit trees grow frontier - the edge of settled land/undiscovered Complementary Literature  The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons, tells tale of a young boy and the adventures he has with his apple tree. It offers a kid friendly explanation of what happens to an apple tree during the different seasons.  Apples   also by Gail Gibbons, explains in kid friendly terms the parts and life cycle of an apple. It also offers a brief history, shows differe...

One of our family fall traditions is to go apple picking. Around the Chicagoland area there are several orchards, the only problem is that some of them aren't sure if they want to be orchards or amusement parks.  Now I have nothing wrong with amusement parks, I quite enjoy them actually, but when I think about picking apples I'm not really wanting rides or concerts. I personally believe apple picking should be simple: a pretty setting, a wagon, and my family. What about you? Do like to keep apple picking simple or do you prefer to make an event out of it?  So we are very glad we stumbled upon Prairie Sky Orchard by accident. This year we had picked out an orchard in Woodstock to visit but when I was checking details the night before, I found out they were out of u-pick apples for the week. A few google searches led us to Prairie Sky , and since it was actually twenty minutes closer to our home we figured we'd give it try.  We are so glad that we did. We...

I had originally planned to focus on apples for only a week but The Buddy enjoyed a couple of the trays so much that there were a few left unexplored.  Instead of rushing on to the next thing I decided to do a second week of Apples which put the remaining trays to use, and allowed us to do a little cooking. On Monday we made apple cake (following this recipe with just a few adjustments: substituting applesauce for the oil & cutting the sugar in half).  Even with the measurements not being quite exact (Mini Man is a very charismatic pourer) the cake turned out wonderfully. If you make it I highly recommend topping it with some homemade caramel.    The Buddy wasn't sure about the texture of the apples but Mini Man loved every bite...too bad for him Mommy and Daddy ate it all before he could have seconds.  On Wednesday we made applesauce. We didn't use a specific recipe but instead worked from memory, referencing a Sid the Scienc...

Handprint apple trees were one of my favorite seasonal crafts as a daycare teacher. It pleased both the kids (painting body parts) and the parents (a craft that they could identify). I had already been planning to incorporate it into our apple theme when our trip to the orchard inspired me to take it up a notch -- instead of creating individual trees, the kids worked together to make their own orchard. I didn't get pictures, but Little Lady made some trees too, and the boys had a lot of fun watching her. When she was finished Mini Man made all his trees. Then the Buddy filled in all the remaining spaces.  He was quite happy that his trees were the BIGGEST. He also found a green hand to be quite silly. We set the trees aside to dry for about an hour and then the boys went to work adding apples. Our finished product :) Before I go I thought I'd throw in a picture of what I think is a life saver when painting with little kids; a bowl of warm wa...

We went apple picking today -- it rained.  Which surprisingly turned out to be perfect: it felt  quintessentially fall - especially with a fire place and a warm drink afterwards - and we had the whole orchard to ourselves.

Our first two weeks of homeschooling went well. There were a few bumps in the road - keeping little brother entertained is a challenge - and we didn't come close to getting to all our "special" activities. The Buddy, however, is loving homeschool and I enjoy feeding his hunger for knowledge. Since we are hoping to make it to an orchard this week, our new theme is apples.  We checked a ton of apple books from the library  but  here  are  my favorites:  Apples ,  The Apple Pie Tree , One Red Apple ,  The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree , From Seed to Apple ,  Ten Apples Up on Top I think we are going to start creating fact boards for each of our  themes. I'm hoping that eventually the Buddy will "write" the  cards but for today I just wrote down what he said.   He  really  enjoyed "reading" these fact cards to his dad  this evening. Skills Practiced; reading comprehension, vocabulary, connecti...